Qurram croons Qawwali for Rangreza

LAHORE-Qurram Hussain, the music director for Bilal Ashraf and Urwa Hocane starrer Rangreza, has also crooned a song, Janasheen, for the musical film. Followed by a magical song, Bagiya, this is the second composition of Qurram aka Q for the film and it was unveiled yesterday just a week before the worldwide release of Rangreza.

The song is a treat through and through and will certainly end up on the top in your daily playlist. Qurram has crooned it in a Qawwali Style which gives it a little mystic touch as well. The track, blended with the modern music and the Qawwali traditions of the region, is a tribute to the great music maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Qurram has composed four albums for his JoSH band, jingles for mobile brands, song for an Indian film and also OSTs for dramas, but Rangreza was his first Pakistani film as music director and playback singer.

The film is set to be released on December 21, 2017, and these days Qurram is in Pakistan on JoSH’s concert tour and most likely to attend the film’s premier. After Karachi and Islamabad, the JoSH band is also scheduled to perform in Lahore this week. Talking to media about Janasheen on Wednesday, Qurram said he composed it quite a while ago as a gentle experiment in the Qawwali genre, and it ended up connecting with Rangreza very naturally. “I guess there is a time and place for every inspiration, and Janasheen found a perfect home in Rangreza,” he said.

Qurram said as a music producer and director, he always wanted to try new things. “When I dive into different genres of music, I always try to be respectful of that genre, so I work with people from whom I can learn and make a better end product,” he added.

He also reveals that although the film’s director Aamir wanted a slightly modern take on a regular Qawwali, but he tried his best to do justice to the essence of Qawwali, so he worked on Janasheen with Sohail Abbas and Imran Khalil, who are both respected producers in Lahore. We recorded all the live instruments in Lahore. For the overall mixing and mastering of the song, I got Ali Mustafa to do it in Dubai, because he put the bigness in the sound in all the songs I’ve done for Rangreza.

On a lighter note, Qurram said that Janasheen was created and composed in his hometown Toronto, recorded in Toronto and Lahore, and mixed and mastered in Dubai. This Qawwali has been all around the world before it got to the listeners! Q smiled. It’s a true labor of love.

Qurram also said when he had first written the lyrics for Janasheen, it took him less than half an hour. Somehow when I started writing, the lyrics were flowing very smoothly, and it was an inspired moment. “We had to make some edits to the poetry to fit the movie scenes better and for this I sat with Akhtar Qayumm, the story writer of the film to do that,” he added.

Qurram said he was in talks for two new big projects but would reveal after the things got final.